Sharing of user content over a communication network has become commonplace, be it via social media sites, platforms and/or applications (e.g. Facebook™, LinkedIn™, Twitter™, Pinterest™, etc.), via shared online or Web platforms (e.g. publicly accessible websites, blogs, chats, etc.), via online media distribution channels or platforms (e.g. YouTube), and more traditional network communication mediums such as email, text, etc.
To date, user content is generally juxtaposed to, or published side by side with external content that is controlled and managed by the service provider associated with the user content sharing platform in question. Accordingly, users generally gain free access to the sharing platform in exchange for having this external content associated with their content at the expense of the external content provider and to the profit of the service provider. Generally, the user has no control over the external content being presented in parallel with their content. This external content may nonetheless be targeted to the user and/or the user's audience, for example based on demographic, social, public and/or extracted data automatically gathered and associated with the user.
In one particular example described in U.S. Patent Application No. 2008/0162228, a user content production platform can be used to integrate selectable advertising content within the user content produced therewith. In exchange of integrating advertising content, the user may be provided free access to the production platform and ad-revenue-sponsored access to licensing rights for copyrighted materials used in the user content so produced (e.g. copyrighted audio/video/image content).
In another example described in U.S. Pat. No. 8,554,627, a patron at a given establishment may be invited to ‘check-in’ to this establishment via a ‘status update’ on their social profile, wherein a picture of the patron at the establishment may be inserted into a photo ad template and posted as the status update.
This background information is provided to reveal information believed by the applicant to be of possible relevance. No admission is necessarily intended, nor should be construed, that any of the preceding information constitutes prior art.